If These New Puritans’ debut album, Beat Pyramid, came out a couple years ago, it likely would have left the quick-to-hyperbolize British media madly dashing about calling the band the new saviours of rock ’n’ roll. At least when they weren’t saying the same thing about Bloc Party and the Arctic Monkeys. In 2008, though, Beat Pyramid sounds a little bit behind the times.

That’s not to say that These New Puritans have created an unabashed flop. Beat Pyramid surges with a tightly wound nervous energy, demonstrates some excellent drumming and possesses some lofty, intellectual idiosyncrasies, but the actual music is getting a bit tired. Like so many other British bands who’ve come along in the last few years, These New Puritans owe an audible debt to the post-punk of Wire, The Fall, Gang of Four, XTC and Joy Division. While the band distances itself from its British peers by expanding upon these influences a bit — like adding a twisted horn sample, pummelling percussion and layered vocals to “Swords of Truth,” and throwing a stuttering dance beat onto “En Papier” — they only sidle up closer to American bands influenced by the same sounds, New York’s Liars in particular.

Beat Pyramid isn’t a bad album, per se, it’s just that, with the possible exceptions of These New Puritans’ noticeable obsession with numbers, there isn’t anything on it that hasn’t been heard a few dozen times too many since 2005.